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If Beale Street Could Talk

If Beale Street Could Talk Mass market paperbound - 1975

by James Baldwin


About this book

If Beale Street Could Talk, James Baldwin's fifth novel is a love story set in Harlem in the early 70's.

Young Tish and Fonny, who are in love and expecting a child. They plan on marrying until Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their tragic love story paints a bleak picture of racism and injustice. It is the only Baldwin novel narrated by a woman. 

From the publisher

In this honest and stunning novel, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin s story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche."

First Edition Identification

The first edition of If Beale Street Could Talk was published by Dial Press in 1974.

Details

  • Title If Beale Street Could Talk
  • Author James Baldwin
  • Binding Mass Market Paperbound
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Signet Book
  • Date 1975-06-01
  • ISBN 9780451065025 / 0451065026
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

About the author

James Baldwin was born in 1924 and educated in New York. He is the author of more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including "Go Tell It on the Mountain"; "Notes of a Native Son"; "Giovanni s Room"; "Nobody Knows My Name"; "Another Country"; "The Fire Next Time"; "Nothing Personal"; "Blues for Mister Charlie"; "Going to Meet the Man"; "The Amen Corner"; "Tell Me How Long the Train s Been Gone"; "One Day When I Was Lost"; "If Beale Street Could Talk"; "The Devil Finds Work"; "Little Man," "Little Man";" Just Above My Head"; "The Evidence of Things Not Seen"; "Jimmy s Blues"; and "The Price of the Ticket." Among the awards he has received are a Eugene F. Saxon Memorial Trust Award, a Rosenwald Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a "Partisan Review" Fellowship, and a Ford Foundation grant. He was made a Commander of the Legion of Honor in 1986. He died in 1987."